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I am an Efficiency Machine. The $700 Pony needs to go to the vet. The dog needs to go to the vet. The only time vet can see both is during my sonâ€™s playgroup. So, I schedule Mom to come down to watch both children and schedule playgroup to be at my house while I take said pony and dog to the vet at the same time. Brilliant.

And now, with the help that happy bastard, Hindsight, letâ€™s revist the above thinking.

Pony needs to go to the vet so she can have shots and draw blood for coggins so she can move to fancy schmancy facility that has agreed to take her scruffy green self for a sum equal per month to more than I make in a year (yeah, employed husband!). Pony will probably load on trailer because she loaded on trailer when I bought her. I have planned to trial this thinking a few times, but the best laid plans of mice and men are often foreshortened by warfarin. Or something like that.

Dog needs to go to vet for annual rabies shot immediately in order to meet dog registration date. We live in a town that would make John Mellencamp feel like a big city boy. If you register a dog in 2004 and fail to register it in 2005, at some point when Officers Bent and McGinly are not too busy (re: Monday through Sunday), they will stop by to see if said dog has expired, or if you are in violation of Local Dog Registration Ordinance. They are great guys, and Iâ€™d like to stay on their side of the law.

Dog is an unfortunate psycho mutt who has reached the unhappy age of 7 without gaining any of the emotional maturity one expects of a dog of 7. She is begging for a lobotomy and heaven help me should I ever get in range with a nail gun [this is a JOKE, people, please treat it as such!].

Son and playgroup are a delightful, frolicking group of 2 year olds. They are such a HOOT! For those of you not well acquainted with human offspring, think â€œweanlings.â€ Joyful, gamboling, boisterous, and basically impossible to contain.

I am a moron.

First, I realize that Psycho Mutt is going to be riding INSIDE THE TRUCK with me. S**t.

Stoicly, I load PM in the cab. She is so excited about going for a ride in the truck (despite the fact that the ONLY place she ever goes is to the Vet â€“ more than a few fries short of a Happy Meal, this one) that I am a little concerned that the adrenaline rush is going to blow her puny brain right out through her ears. Instead, she limits herself to flinging herself around with supreme abandon, spraying canine saliva all over the inside of my truck. Ew.

Second, I have not actually had time to see if the $700 Pony will get back on the trailer. Of course, the $700 Pony does not want to get in the trailer. Why would she? She has no desire to leave her 100 chicken new best friends behind, right?

Third, the trailer was within site of the cavorting 2 year old playgroup. Small human children are the most adorable little things. At least, if you are their parents. Probably less so if you are a $700 Pony.

So there I am with grain and lunge whip in hand slowly coaxing the $700 Pony onto the ramp when the pack of little darlings catches sight of the $700 Pony. All heck broke loose. MOMMYPONYPONYPONY!â€ â€œHORSIEHORSIEHORSIEâ€ â€œNEIGHNEIGHNEIGHâ€ and then of course my son who has the inside track â€œTHATâ€™SMYMOMMIESPONYEMMIEEMMIEEMMIEEM MIE!â€

They looked like a pack of young thoroughbreds at the track, barely restrained by their outriders. Until, unlike at the track, they broke free from their mommy handlers and in a swarming mass, charged down the hill toward me and the unfortunate $700 Pony.

Psycho Mutt, seeing the seething mass of 2 year olds, losses her mind completely, and, I SWEAR, tries to turn herself INSIDE OUT!! AND NEARLY SUCCEEDS! All you can see in the cab of the truck is a frenzy of flying fur as she flings herself again and again against the door, hoping against hope that a miracle will occur, that she will discover she has grown an opposable thumb and will be able to let herself out of the cab.

I looked at the $700 Pony and she looked at me. â€œPony,â€ I say, â€œNow would be a really good time to just hop right on the trailer.â€ She pondered this for a split second, nodded her wise pony head and agreed. She hopped on the trailer, and with bare nanoseconds to spare, I hauled up the ramp, as what seems like several hundred pounds of frenetic human two year olds, driven down the hill by the perpetual energy supplied by an overabundance of animal crackers and apple juice WHUMPED into the side trailer.

So, while I am a moron, the $700 Pony is a very wise old soul.

Anticlimax: Vet proclaimed the $700 Pony, in fact, a pony (14h), probably 6 years old (instead of 7), not blind (whew!) and a fine, big boned girl. Her coggins will be back tomorrow and I will quickly whisk her away from her chicken buddies and to a fancy schmancy new life. Wish us luck!!

I am an Efficiency Machine. The $700 Pony needs to go to the vet. The dog needs to go to the vet. The only time vet can see both is during my sonâ€™s playgroup. So, I schedule Mom to come down to watch both children and schedule playgroup to be at my house while I take said pony and dog to the vet at the same time. Brilliant.

And now, with the help that happy bastard, Hindsight, letâ€™s revist the above thinking.

Pony needs to go to the vet so she can have shots and draw blood for coggins so she can move to fancy schmancy facility that has agreed to take her scruffy green self for a sum equal per month to more than I make in a year (yeah, employed husband!). Pony will probably load on trailer because she loaded on trailer when I bought her. I have planned to trial this thinking a few times, but the best laid plans of mice and men are often foreshortened by warfarin. Or something like that.

Dog needs to go to vet for annual rabies shot immediately in order to meet dog registration date. We live in a town that would make John Mellencamp feel like a big city boy. If you register a dog in 2004 and fail to register it in 2005, at some point when Officers Bent and McGinly are not too busy (re: Monday through Sunday), they will stop by to see if said dog has expired, or if you are in violation of Local Dog Registration Ordinance. They are great guys, and Iâ€™d like to stay on their side of the law.

Dog is an unfortunate psycho mutt who has reached the unhappy age of 7 without gaining any of the emotional maturity one expects of a dog of 7. She is begging for a lobotomy and heaven help me should I ever get in range with a nail gun [this is a JOKE, people, please treat it as such!].

Son and playgroup are a delightful, frolicking group of 2 year olds. They are such a HOOT! For those of you not well acquainted with human offspring, think â€œweanlings.â€ Joyful, gamboling, boisterous, and basically impossible to contain.

I am a moron.

First, I realize that Psycho Mutt is going to be riding INSIDE THE TRUCK with me. S**t.

Stoicly, I load PM in the cab. She is so excited about going for a ride in the truck (despite the fact that the ONLY place she ever goes is to the Vet â€“ more than a few fries short of a Happy Meal, this one) that I am a little concerned that the adrenaline rush is going to blow her puny brain right out through her ears. Instead, she limits herself to flinging herself around with supreme abandon, spraying canine saliva all over the inside of my truck. Ew.

Second, I have not actually had time to see if the $700 Pony will get back on the trailer. Of course, the $700 Pony does not want to get in the trailer. Why would she? She has no desire to leave her 100 chicken new best friends behind, right?

Third, the trailer was within site of the cavorting 2 year old playgroup. Small human children are the most adorable little things. At least, if you are their parents. Probably less so if you are a $700 Pony.

So there I am with grain and lunge whip in hand slowly coaxing the $700 Pony onto the ramp when the pack of little darlings catches sight of the $700 Pony. All heck broke loose. MOMMYPONYPONYPONY!â€ â€œHORSIEHORSIEHORSIEâ€ â€œNEIGHNEIGHNEIGHâ€ and then of course my son who has the inside track â€œTHATâ€™SMYMOMMIESPONYEMMIEEMMIEEMMIEEM MIE!â€

They looked like a pack of young thoroughbreds at the track, barely restrained by their outriders. Until, unlike at the track, they broke free from their mommy handlers and in a swarming mass, charged down the hill toward me and the unfortunate $700 Pony.

Psycho Mutt, seeing the seething mass of 2 year olds, losses her mind completely, and, I SWEAR, tries to turn herself INSIDE OUT!! AND NEARLY SUCCEEDS! All you can see in the cab of the truck is a frenzy of flying fur as she flings herself again and again against the door, hoping against hope that a miracle will occur, that she will discover she has grown an opposable thumb and will be able to let herself out of the cab.

I looked at the $700 Pony and she looked at me. â€œPony,â€ I say, â€œNow would be a really good time to just hop right on the trailer.â€ She pondered this for a split second, nodded her wise pony head and agreed. She hopped on the trailer, and with bare nanoseconds to spare, I hauled up the ramp, as what seems like several hundred pounds of frenetic human two year olds, driven down the hill by the perpetual energy supplied by an overabundance of animal crackers and apple juice WHUMPED into the side trailer.

So, while I am a moron, the $700 Pony is a very wise old soul.

Anticlimax: Vet proclaimed the $700 Pony, in fact, a pony (14h), probably 6 years old (instead of 7), not blind (whew!) and a fine, big boned girl. Her coggins will be back tomorrow and I will quickly whisk her away from her chicken buddies and to a fancy schmancy new life. Wish us luck!!

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> She hopped on the trailer, and with bare nanoseconds to spare, I hauled up the ramp, as what seems like several hundred pounds of frenetic human two year olds, driven down the hill by the perpetual energy supplied by an overabundance of animal crackers and apple juice WHUMPED into the side trailer.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You deserve a Pulitzer for that one!!! To heck with getting published in the Chronicle...write a few more stories like that and publish a BOOK. I will be first in line to buy it. My gawd, you are HILARIOUS!!!!!